Sgt Joch

On paper, the Russian army is similar to the Syrian army, but there is that imponderable known as "quality" to consider. On paper, both the 1967 and 1973 wars should have been decisive Arab victories since the Arab armies had large numerical superiority and generally better equipment. There have been numerous studies written has to why Arab armies generally do poorly, some cite cultural factors, others training or organisation. What is clear is that Arab units do not react well to unforeseen situations. They generally fight well in prepared defensive positions or if following a pre-rehearsed ofensive plan, but tend to freeze in mobile, fluid battles. For example, look at a situation where a unit is attacking a hill and an enemy unit suddenly appears on their flank. In a NATO unit, the commander on the spot would generally rearrange his plan/forces to take into account the new situation and how to deal with it. In an Arab unit, the commander would generally either freeze and ask higher HQ for orders or try to follow his original plan, neither of which is usually the right choice. The Russian army fights more like a western army, as we can see from 1943-45 or the 2008 war. As to what a U.S.-Russia battle would look like, we can presume each side will try to play to its strength. The U.S. will try to leverage its technological edge: satellites/UAVs to spot enemy forces, air power to attrite them before they come in contact, "blue force tracker" to maximise firepower once contact is made. There is also the possibility of "cyber warfare" to further disrupt enemy forces. The Russians would probably try to neutralize U.S. air superiority with their air defenses and achieve local numerical superiority to overwhelm U.S. forces. The big question mark is air power which is a big plus for U.S. forces. In Kosovo in 1999, the Serbs tried new air defence tactics which partly neutralized NATO air power. Many observers think the Russians were behind the the new tactics and the Russians now have much more sophisticated systems. On the other hand, one of the principal design goal behind the new F-35 is the ability to penetrate sophisticated air defences, plus there is also the entire area of "cyber warfare". So, if the battle goes as the U.S. wants, air power will blast much of the Russian forces before they come in contact and ground forces will deal with the survivors. If the battle goes as the Russians want, U.S. air power will be neutralized and very large Russian ground forces will overwhelm the defenders. The nice thing about CMSF2 is that you will be able to try out both scenarios.

for those who like to study, there are some good in depth articles on Russian military performance in the 2008 Georgian war and the ongoing modernisation efforts: 1. Roger McDermott, "Russia's conventional armed forces and the Georgian war". good overview of the strength/weaknesses of the Russian army. http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/09spring/mcdermott.pdf 2. Rod Thornton, "Military modernisation and the Russian ground forces" good overview of the ongoing modernisation program http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1071.pdf 3. Rod Thornton, "Organisational changes in the Russian airborne forces: the lessons of the Georgian conflict" another overview of the modernisation program, but focusing on the VVS which are the elite forces of the Russian Army. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1096.pdf

Russian military performance has always been something of a mystery. On paper, the Russian Army has many of the same weaknesses as Arab armies: overly centralized C2, unmotivated/poorly trained soldiers, pervasive corruption in the officer corps, etc. For 20 years or so after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Army spent very little on new equipment and in 2008 had around 80% legacy equipment and only about 20% modern equipment while in most western armies, the proportion is the reverse. The 2008 war exposed many of the problems: -the command chain was overly complex; -much of the equipment was obsolescent or worn out: many units were still equipped with T-62 tanks and many vehicles/AFV broke down; -the communication system was obsolete and many units had trouble just staying in radio contact with their HQ/subordinate units. Ordinary soldiers did not have radios, only platoon leaders/officers; -the GLONASS system went down for 48 hours (CIA/DoD/NSA? ) and the Russians could not use any of their GPS guided munitions. Despite that, tactical performance of Russian units was actually quite good, certainly much better than what Arab armies have achieved. Certain VVS (airborne) units redeployed up to 2,000 km from their bases and were in action within 36 hours of the Georgian attack. Russian officers/units showed a lot of tactical initiative in defeating Georgian units and keeping up the momentum of the offensive. Since 2008, the Russians have embarked on an ambitious project to modernise their army: -the command chains/levels have been simplified. The division structure has been scrapped in favor of NATO style brigades. This is already in place and results of training exercises appear promising, although efforts to reform the officer corps and improve the professionalism of ordinary soldiers appear less successful. -much of the equipment is due to be replaced, Russia wants to increase the proportion of modern equipment to 30% in 2015 and 80% in 2020. This seems overly ambitious, although all T-62s have been removed from front line units and the principal battle tank is now the T-72BM which is more potent than the T-72 turms in Syria. -GLONASS has been improved by the addition of several satellites. Russia wants to put in place a net centric system like the U.S. "Blue Force Tracker" in 2015-17, but that seems overly ambitious since they seem to be struggling just to make sure each soldier has a reliable radio. Overall, Russian units should perform better than the best Syrian units in CMSF, although U.S. forces should maintain a training/equipement/technological edge for at least the next 5-10 years.

Balkoski's "Beyond the Beachhead" has detailed description of what happened to the various companies of the U.S. 29th division that landed at OMAHA. It was really a matter of luck. The first wave that landed on western end of the beach, especially DOG GREEN, just happened to be directly in front of a german bunker/MG nests and were almost totally wiped out. This is the scene recreated at the beginning of "Saving Private Ryan". However, the companies which landed on the eastern end were obscured by smoke and many managed to reach the seawall with little or no casualties. Getting off the beach was another matter...

makes sense, its been a long time since I looked at it.

My understanding is that the U.S. 90mm gun was developped as a direct response to the German 88mm. The U.S. built thousands to use against German tanks, however by the time they started being fielded, Germany was on the defensive, so most wound up being in depots/storage or only used in a AA role.

very nice.

I presume you mean in terms of reputation? because the U.S. 90 mm AT/AA gun has very comparable performance.

its nice to see other countries producing war movies, they tend to have a different take on the war then we do. Has anyone seen "Flowers of War"? it is the most expensive chinese movie ever made. It takes place in 1937 and you can see the chinese still have not forgiven the japanese for the war.

looks good, apparently it is based on the story of Pavlov's house. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlov's_House

yes, found this 1944 german army training film a while back. You see soldiers typically attached quite a bit of foliage to their helmets. the other parts are here: p.s. nice mod!

This is an interesting development. Iraqi Shiites are now fighting on the government side. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqi-shiites-fight-for-syrian-government/2013/05/26/6c3c39b4-c245-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html?hpid=z10

ah yes, this thead is already too long...

Tony Le Tissier, The Siege of Kustrin, (p.45)

Hubert Meyer, The 12th SS, (p.131)

It would be nice to know the source also. It does not look like other WW2 footage I have seen, although I could be wrong. It looks a bit like 50-60s TV footage, from a show maybe? :confused:

This is pretty much a circular debate. Of course, if someone could post a video of a schrek/faust/bazooka being fired from inside an enclosed building it would help. You can't really compare WW2 weapons with modern weapons. Schreks/fausts had a one stage design using black powder as a propellant. Modern AT weapons, even RPGs, use a two stage design with a first soft launch to push the weapon out of the tube and away from the operator before the main rocket fires. Even then weapons like the LAW or M47 DRAGON had severe restrictions against indoor use: appendix R-9, FM 7-7 http://trainingnco.pbworks.com/f/FM+7-7++The+Mechanized+Infantry+Platoon+and+Squad+(+APC).pdf Lets also not forget the consequences of blast injuries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_injury also, even modern RPGs can be dangerous if you are not careful... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94xB_5iAaEc you would have a much easier time if the argument was that schreks/fausts should be capable of being fired from heavily damaged/destryed buildings.

JasonC had done a good overview of SS divisions in normandy here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1256228&postcount=123 1st SS had a lot of combat experience, but had many fresh replacemnts because of heavy losses in the East so you probably had a mix of veteran leaders with a lot of green recruits, so "regulars" with a few "veterans" mixed in is probably closer. 12th SS were mostly raw recruits with veteran leaders. It would be hard to justify more than mostly "regulars" with a few "greens". 9th and 10th SS were filled out with conscripts, not volunteers. 17th SS was a green outfit.

Patton was Patton. It seems pretty clear that the fact that he may have unwittingly encouraged his soldiers to kill prisoners was one of the reasons why he was relieved of command. However, his attitude was disavowed by everyone else in the Allied high command: http://suite101.com/article/relieved-of-command-how-patton-lost-the-seventh-army-part-i-a408468

Even if we take those numbers at face value, we have 292 German/Italian prisoners killed by U.S. troops, although the verifiable number is probably closer to 105. That is totally dwarfed by the number of POWs killed on the German side which are closer to 3,000,000. That is not true, the U.S. Army generally investigated all cases of unlawful killings and all those involved in the Biscari incident were prosecuted. The Germans however, never prosecuted anyone for killing Allied POWs. Agreed, but the scale and volume of atrocities on the German side, even by regular German Army units dwarfs anything on the Allied side. Its like comparing a shoplifter with a serial killer.

all I see are innuendos, rumours and hearsay which even posters in that thread contest. You are not really going to submit a forum thread as evidence, are you? SS General Kurt Meyer was sentenced to death by a canadian military tribunal for ordering the killing of 18 canadian soldiers. This was later commuted to life imprisonment and he was released by the Canadians after serving 5 years. What is your point, that Allied justice was too lenient? Perhaps you prefer Nazi military justice, this is what happened to the German officers in charge of the Remagen bridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludendorff_Bridge Entirely relevant. If we are going to compare how each side treated prisoners, we have to see how Germans treated prisoners and it was not a question of Germans "not having enough food", there were clear orders to "liquidate" the Soviet POWs as quickly as possible. This was done by only giving them a starvation diet or no food at all, leaving them exposed to the elements or when that was too slow, shooting them: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007183 Now if you want an example from the western front, you also have the killing of 5,000 italian POWs by German Army and SS troops in september 1943. There were so many that it took the Germans a week to kill them all. The order to kill the POWs came directly from the German High command. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Acqui_Division There is no evidence that the U.S. Army ever ordered or covered up the killing of prisoners as a policy. The closest anyone has found is an order given by the 328th regiment HQ right after the Malmedy massacre that "no SS troops or paratroopers" were to be taken prisoners. However, that order was rescinded after a few days once cooler heads prevailed. So, let us look at the evidence: 1. were prisoners shot if the heat of combat or right after surrendering? No doubt, every veteran will tell you that surrendering is very dangerous. This has happened in every war, including WW2. However, the evidence is pretty clear that the worst offenders were the Waffen SS and even regular German units were generally worse that U.S. units in this regard; 2. were prisoners shot in cold blood some times after surrendering? of course, however again, the vast majority of such cases were Germans units killing Allied prisoners. There are very few documented cases of Allied units killing German prisoners; 3. were orders given to kill prisoners? On the German side, there are many very well documented cases of officers at all levels, going all the way up to the high command ordering the killing of prisoners. On the U.S. Army side, there is nothing other than the Malmedy order. 4. were POWs in camps maltreated? Not on the Allied side, all were treated in accordance with the Geneva convention. On the German side, 2,800,000 Soviet POWs were killed in 1941-42 alone. 5. were soldiers punished for the unlawful killing of POWs? Never on the German side. The U.S Army generally investigated and prosecuted every known case of unlawful killing of prisoners. So, to summarize, no matter what standards you use, the U.S. Army in Europe fought a very clean and professional war. That is the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

well again, there is the issue of relative scale and how each organisation dealt with it. In 1941, the German Army captured about 3,500,000 Russian prisoners. By the spring of 1942, 2,800,000 were dead, either through mass executions, exposure or starvation. Now lets look at the so called "Biscari massacre". 1. the Compton incident: capt. Compton's 2nd platoon received sniper fire all day. The snipers targeted wounded GIs and the medics sent to help them. 12 of 34 men in the platoon were casualties. When Compton 's men finally reached the spot where the sniper fire was coming from, the enemy soldiers promptly surrendered. Compton had all 36 shot. 2. the West incident: Sgt West gunned down 37 prisoners he was escorting to the rear. obviously not acceptable behavior, but the U.S. Army court martialed both Compton and West for the unlawful killings. West was sentenced to life in prison. Compton was acquitted, but Compton is a harder case since it is on the ragged edge between a lawful killing in the heat of the action and an unlawful killing after prisoners have been taken into custody. The important point is that the U.S.Army court martialed both Compton and West for their actions. No one in the German Army was punished for the death of the 2,800,000 Russian POWs.

well, we could probably go on a long time comparing man's inhumanity to man and no one would say US or UK society in the 40s (or even 2013) is perfect. However, in comparing 20th century atrocities, the result is always the same, the usual suspects (Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, pre-45 Japan, etc.) are the worst in pretty much all categories and the "liberal" democracies are usually far in back of the pack. not much good can come from this type of topic, perhaps another tack...

On Eugenics, you have had proponents in all countries for a long time, the main difference between Germany and the Aliies was how far they took it. Germany: 1. murder of an estimated 200-275,000 mentally disabled children and adults under their official T4 program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4#Killing_of_adults 2. murder of 6,000,000+ jews, gypsies and other "races" to preserve the "purity" of the "Aryan race". US/UK: 1. murder of...well actually no one was killed under a government approved extermination plan. so..score card: Germany: 6,200,000+ murders. USA: 0 murders. UK: 0 murders.

JonS, that article also brings up an interesting point which does not appear to have been looked at in detail by anyone, namely that around 2% of all men are sociopaths or have sociopathic tendencies. I have always wondered if sociopaths, who generally do not perform well in civil society, turn out to be over represented in the "war hero" category, i.e. the top fighter aces, snipers, combat leaders, etc., since being a "sociopath" is probably a plus in a combat environment. thoughts?